


Nearly Witches

by twenty_one_jalex



Category: Fall Out Boy, LeATHERMØUTH, Mindless Self Indulgence, My Chemical Romance, Panic! at the Disco, Pencey Prep
Genre: Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, Bloodplay, Demonic Possession, Eventual Romance, M/M, Magic, Mental Breakdown, Psychological Torture, Ray can read latin, Smut, Spells & Enchantments, Witchcraft, Witches, accidental murder, also potential traumatization, brace yourselves for the feeling, frank is an idiot
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-20
Updated: 2016-08-30
Packaged: 2018-08-10 01:10:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7824325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twenty_one_jalex/pseuds/twenty_one_jalex
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Don’t worry about it,” he shrugged and brushed off his pants, shaking his head to move his hair from his face and when he looked back at Frank, gold eyes pierced into him. “I gotta,” he started but just jerked a thumb to the side, and pushed past Frank quickly.</p>
<p>He noticed a book on the ground that the guy must have dropped, and Frank stooped to pick it up. “You forgot your,” he turned around waving the book, but the guy was nowhere in sight. “Book. God damnit.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Light Behind (His) Eyes

**Author's Note:**

> this is cute but also note the tags are for real. shit gets real.

Frank slowly opened his eyes and yawned, blinking a few times before rolling his head to the side and feeling around in the room for his phone. After frantically patting on the sheets next to his pillow, his fingers curled around a cold rectangle. He proceeded to blind himself, as the lighthouse beacon brightness of his iPhone filled the room and burned his corneas. Eventually, he managed to turn the brightness down and squinted at the time.

Frank Iero had never gotten out of bed so fast. He vaguely remembered the night before; around 4 in the morning he had found himself staring at his reflection in the black screen of his laptop from an especially unflattering angle after finishing all of the episodes of some anime on Netflix. He didn't remember falling asleep, but that was all beside the point now as he ran around his room getting dressed.

He jumped around trying to hastily pull on his girl cut jeans and reached for his shirt. But the next minute he found himself on the ground. Footsteps reached the door, and much to Frank's dismay, his roommate opened the door.

"Jesus Christ Frank," she muttered, taking in the sight of him crumpled on the floor; jeans halfway on. "What the fuck happened? Are you alright?"

"I'm fine," he started, "but I'm late. Come on Jamia why'd you let me sleep in? You know I have shit to do today for once."

Jamia shrugged and leaned against the door frame as Frank sat up and pulled on his jeans with some struggle. "You looked tired," she said.

Frank bit his tongue, stopping himself from yelling in response and pulled his shirt over his head before standing up. He stood by his dresser and shoved various things around until he found his wallet.

"You oughta clean that," Jamia pointed out.

He rolled his eyes and searched for his keys, "What are you, my mother now?" He muttered. An empty can fell off the messy dresser and he swore under his breath, swiftly kicking it under his bed.

"I'm not your mother, but I just don't want an eco-system to grow in here," she sighed and scratched her head. "Anyways, I'm off to work, don't forget to lock the door this time. There's that crazy fucker down the hall and I'd rather he didn't break into our house and axe the dog or some shit."

Frank mumbled something along the lines of a goodbye', but focused on getting everything together before he left. He shoved some of his medication into his tattered backpack, along with a bottle of lotion for his newest tattoo, hand sanitizer, his wallet, a notebook, a bag of chips, and a beanie and gloves. Satisfied with the contents, he found his keys in the bathroom and hurriedly brushed his teeth. He swore when some of the frothy toothpaste dripped onto the front of his dark jeans.

Finally at almost 1:30pm, he jogged down the steps of his apartment and to his car. Immediately, he stepped on the gas and drove downtown to meet with his friends. He kept glancing at the time on his dashboard as he pulled into the parking lot of the library. Frank ran to the building, but just as he reached the doors he collided full force with someone.

They both fell onto the ground and it took Frank a minute to realize what had happened. He sat up and rubbed his forehead. Before him sat a guy around his age groaning, dark hair obscuring most of his face. 

“Shit, I’m sorry,” Frank offered and helped him up. 

“Don’t worry about it,” he shrugged and brushed off his pants, shaking his head to move his hair from his face and when he looked back at Frank, gold eyes pierced into him. “I gotta,” he started but just jerked a thumb to the side, and pushed past Frank quickly.

He noticed a book on the ground that the guy must have dropped, and Frank stooped to pick it up. “You forgot your,” he turned around waving the book, but the guy was nowhere in sight. “Book. God damnit,” he muttered and tucked it into his backpack and entered the library.

When he finally reached his friends, James was the first to speak up, “17 minutes and 34 seconds late. That has to be a new record.”

“At least I made it,” Frank muttered and sat at the table. “Also I ran into this guy wh-”

Everyone groaned in unison. Ray laughed and rested his head on the table, “How many guys will we have to suffer through?”

Lindsey nodded, “Honestly it’s always the same cycle Frankie,” she agreed.

Their friend Quinton spoke in a dramaticized imitation of Frank’s voice, “Oh my God, this dude I met! He’s my soulmate, I swear. I must immediately run off to the Caribbean with him to get married and live by the ocean for the rest of our days!”

“Is gay marriage even legal there?” Shaun pondered, immediately earning a smack in the shoulder from James.

“Where is the Caribbean even?” Rebecca asked.

Bob gave her a weird look and pointed at a bookshelf, “We’re in a library, go find a book on geography.”

They were all interrupted by an aggressive shushing from the librarian near them. Frank rolled his eyes. “Anyways,” he continued, “I literally ran into him full force. And he was hot but his eyes, I swear they were made of real gold it was weird.”

“They were probably brown and you were under the illusion that he was some prince of Persia or some shit because you’re lovestruck,” Bob smirked.

“Can we watch that movie? I haven’t seen it forever,” Rebecca asked, but before anyone could answer, Frank sighed dramatically.

“As I was fucking saying,” he moved to pull out the book. “He dropped this and when I went to give it back, he literally disappeared.”

Almost everyone looked at him like he was crazy, while Ray picked it up and examined it. Lindsey however, stared at the weathered book with wide eyes.

It was dark purple with weathered corners and the edges of the paper were a faded gold, just like the guy from earlier’s eyes. The title was almost completely rubbed out and Ray pursed his lips, smoothing his hand over the cover. All of them watched him in anticipation as he opened it. Ray was the brains of the group, he had spent years travelling in Europe and had a thing for scriptures and literature. Frank peered at the book as it opened, but quickly deflated when Ray presented that all of the pages were blank. Lindsey let out what appeared to be a sigh of relief.

“Well that was fucking anticlimactic,” James huffed and leaned back again.

As everyone grumbled in agreement and moved on to talking about future plans, Frank picked up the book and turned it over in his hands a few times. He trailed his fingers over where the title would be, his eyebrows knitting together in concentration as he traced the gold remnants. Much to his surprise, the gold seemed to glow as he touched the long disappeared letters and he found himself involuntarily opening the cover while non-descript whispered filled his ears.

“Frank!” Lindsey snapped, bringing his attention back. He dropped the book on the table and stared at her, wide-eyed. She scowled at him and quirked an eyebrow. “What the fuck, you see a ghost just now Iero? You’re paler than me.”

Frank rubbed his face and offered a smile, “Sorry, I just spaced out. What are we talking about?”

Quinton threw the die up and caught it between his index finger and thumb, “We’re starting the game. What class shall you be, Sir Franklin?” He asked with a crooked smile. 

He pursed his lips and smiled, “I’ll give everyone one guess.”

Bob rolled his eyes, “He’s picking bard again guys.” Frank gave him the thumbs up and pulled his chair closer to the table.

“No,” James pointed at Frank. “No, you are not allowed to fucking pick bard again or I swear I will shove that piece up your ass.”

Frank raised his hands and flipped him off. “Fine then, you fuckin’ Barbarian.” James only shrugged in reply and Frank rested his head on his hand and sighed, “Rogue.”

They all cheered, immediately being hushed by the librarian and began their game. As Frank played, however, he couldn’t help but let his mind wander back to that old book and the golden eyed boy.


	2. The Nightmares You'll See Tomorrow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> listen, be prepared for really slow updates because i'm starting uni again next week

Frank was running; he didn’t know from what. He was too scared to look back and see what monstrous creation was behind him. All that he knew was that he couldn’t stop running, and he didn’t know why. Fear was gripping his body, making each step more difficult than the last, but he wasn’t going to stop. He couldn’t fucking stop. No stopping, he thought to himself, pushing through what had now manifested into pain. His muscles were burning as he kept telling himself to keep going. 

The ground dropped from beneath him, he tried to scream but no sound escaped his throat when his body hit the floor. Suddenly, everything was deafeningly quiet. He scratched at his ears, trying to almost force them to hear, while straining to see around him. It was dark except for light streaming in from where he had fell, illuminating his skin. In the distance, he thought he saw a golden figure for a moment, so he began crawling towards it. As he felt out in front of him, he slowly started to crawl to the direction of where he saw the flash of gold, quiet whispering beginning to fill his mind. 

The gold flashed, quickly turning into a strong pulse, staying more and more solid as he grew closer, but the foreign whispers grew louder as he neared it. Just as he reached the light, it flickered out and he was in the complete darkness. The whispers continued even as he laid there panting, they were so loud that he couldn’t even hear his own breathing. His eyes flitted around frantically, seeing nothing. He felt his heart rate picking up quickly and he clutched his chest, trying to scream out but his voice caught when he opened his mouth.

He was dying. He knew it. This was exactly how he was going to die; he could feel it. His eyes began to close, but suddenly he saw the book in front of him, only this time it appeared to be new. He reached out and picked it up, running his hands over the cover like he did before. _Cantus Deorum_ , was written in gold and below was some symbols he didn’t understand, but one seemed to be glowing more in contrast to the dull gold writing around it. It was almost trident shaped, but the three lines at the top were straight. His hand glided to open it, the whispering that was already so loud began to turn into screams.

When his fingers slowly pulled open the book, a bright golden light starting to pour from the book almost liquid-like. The light from the book touched his bare legs, it burned, his skin bubbling. He still couldn’t cry out, but now he couldn’t stop his fingers from moving. No, he didn’t want to stop anymore. The light continued to drip onto him, faster now as the book was opened further. 

When it snapped open, the screaming became so high pitched that it was soundless. From within the book came a heavenly light, brighter than anything he'd seen. He shielded his eyes with his arm, but the liquid properties of the golden light carried, the last thing he could see was it flying directly towards him.

Frank bolted upright in bed, breathing heavily. His skin was covered in a sheen of sweat and he put his hand over his chest, feeling his rapid heart rate. He was at home, in his bed. The cheap fan he bought hummed and slowly oscillated, pushing stale air towards him. He could faintly hear the snores of his roommate through the wall.

“Fucking dreams,” he muttered quietly and got out of bed, heading towards the kitchen. The book lay on the counter, tauntingly, his cigarettes on top of it. He picked up both and walked out to their small balcony. A dining chair still sat on it, a reminder of their first ever party in the apartment. 

Jamia had invited practically everyone she knew, Frank invited a few old friends. One drunk girl dragged the chair out to sit down while she smoked, too drunk to stand on her own. That same girl had a wall climbing contest with Jamia, and Jamia put a torso-sized hole into the thin wall that night.

Frank smiled fondly as he sat on the chair, pulling out a cigarette. After he lit it, he started examining the book again. “Cantus Deorum, huh?” he mumbled. The rubbed out letters seemed to glow for a split second and he frowned. 

He opened the book and choked on his smoke when the pages were full of words. “What the fuck?” he managed to cough out, rubbing his chest and continuing to cough until there were tears in his eyes.

His eyes raked the page a few times and he threw up his eyebrows; it was all in English. He flipped the pages frantically, scanning the words. They filled his mind as he read them quickly, none of them stood out to him. His fingers continued to turn the pages until he suddenly stopped. There was only one short paragraph on the page, but what caught his eye was a line of handwritten words above the paragraph.

“Gratias ago,” he began, rolling the words around in his mouth slowly. Frank knew a lot of things, and he’d be the first to tell you so, but one thing he did not know was Latin. He took a deep breath and pronounced the words as well as he could, “Gratias ago tibi quia est venenum.”

He frowned and stood up, his cigarette now reduced to a stick of ash. “What does it mean!?” He yelled, louder than he intended to, his voice echoing down the empty street. Once he threw the cigarette over the balcony, he walked back into the house and tossed the book onto the kitchen table. It was past 5 in the morning at this point, so he flicked on the coffee maker and leaned over the counter, rubbing his face.

“Are you having an existential crisis?” A voice spoke. Frank jerked backwards, resulting in him falling to the tiled floor. Frantically, he looked up and saw Jamia holding herself up against the wall. She held her stomach and laughed silently, unable to breathe. “You, you fucking,” she continued to laugh, “Your fucking face, how many times can you fall in one day?”

Frank flipped her off and sat up, rubbing his back. “You’re an asshole,” he grumbled and pulled himself back to a standing position. “Why are you up? It’s your day off.”

She shrugged and sat on the countertop adjacent to him, “You yelled ‘what does this mean!?’ or some shit and woke me up. Had to check that my best friend slash shitty ex boyfriend wasn’t having an existential crisis and about to jump off the balcony in despair or some bullshit.”

“I wasn’t having an existential crisis,” he muttered and raked his fingers through his hair. “I was just reading something in a different language.”

Jamia made a small ‘o’ shape with her mouth and yawned, “Well I’m going back to bed, I suggest you learn a language at another time because sleep is important.”

“Ciao,” Frank smirked and saluted. He sighed and rested his head against the cabinet for a moment before hopping off the counter and dragging himself back down the hall, and into his bedroom.

The moment his head hit the pillow, he was out. The following few hours were filled with a restless, fitful sleep. He woke up a few times but was far too tired to get up, so he slept through until almost 3pm. He would have slept longer, but a loud knocking at the front door woke him up.

At first, he couldn’t tell where the knocking was coming from in his state of semi-consciousness. He sat up on his elbows and yawned, eyes watering. The knocking became louder and he rolled off his bed, pulling on a pair of random boxers from the ground. As he approached the door, the knocking didn’t cease and he rolled his eyes, “I’m coming, calm down!” He yelled.

 

When he looked through the peephole, he didn’t see anyone, but he threw open the door anyways. Immediately, Lindsey pushed into the house. “What, can’t you answer a fucking phone Iero? Where is it?” She asked, frantically.

He cocked an eyebrow at her and crossed his arms, “What the fuck are you on about?” He asked.

“That fucking book, you brought that book to the library,” she explained, throwing things off his counter and whipping open the cabinet doors. “I need to know where it is, I know what it is.”

“What is it?” He asked, a skeptical edge to his voice. “And why do you want it?”

She huffed in frustration and threw her hands up, “We don’t have time for that, just tell me where the fucking book is.”

Frank shook his head and laughed sarcastically, “Okay well, you do have the time to explain if you want to know where the book is. I don’t know why you want it, but I have a pretty good idea of what it is.”

Lindsey shoved him back, “If you know what it is, why are you being a dipshit and not giving me the book? Everyone’s in danger!” She cried. When Frank didn’t respond, she rolled her eyes and stepped back, “What if the owner of the book comes and gets it himself?”

He eyed her skeptically but sighed. “Fine, he can come get it himself then.”

“Great, fine,” she replied, an edge of disappointment framing her voice. “Just tell me one thing; promise me you didn’t read anything from it.”

Frank’s mind flashed back to the night before; the title glowing, his fingers moving involuntarily to rake the old pages, the latin script becoming so alluring to him. “You saw it,” he lied. “The pages were blank, how could I read empty pages?”

She sighed in relief, her entire body visibly more relaxed. 

“One catch though,” he continued, a worrying smirk plastered to his face. “He can only come and get his book if he goes on a date with me.”

Lindsey glared at him apathetically. “Not everyone is gay, Frank.”

Frank crossed his arms and shrugged, “You give him my number and tell him the conditions. He can decide for himself.”

“Fine,” she groaned and walked out the door but turned around, “Just don’t don't anythi-”

He cut her off by shutting the door before she could finish. He walked over to the book and picked it up, pursing his lips. “What have you gotten me into?”


End file.
